True, those message do indicate task file corruption. Those can be solved by eliminating the task files and registry entries, I did that before. But I vote first for using the system account as the symptoms

Is there a particular reason you created a batch file to perform the reboot command instead of just specifying the shutdown.exe command in the Actions tab?

In the Actions tab of your task, remove the existing entry for the batch file then click on New > select Start a program from the Action drop down > in the Program/script box type in shutdown.exe > in the Add arguments (optional) field type in -r > OK > test the task again.

Jeff, simply take the account "system" as executioner and all will be good.

My guess about the "why is this happening" (just a guess): you are on a domain. The default domain policy sets who has the privilege to run as a batch job (that is a user privilege required for scheduled tasks!). Whenever you setup that task, the account you chose was granted that privilege but after a reboot, a policy refresh occurs and overwrites that setting, rendering the task broken. Have seen that "problem" millions of times.

If that's not it, please look at the history tab of that task, that's like a log file.

Run sfc /scannow and chkdsk /f /r in an elevated command prompt first to rule out system corruption, then post back here with your results. The "Selected Task "(0)" not longer exists" and "Catastrophic Failure" error messages are usually related to corrupted registry entries or corrupted task .xml files.

True, those message do indicate task file corruption. Those can be solved by eliminating the task files and registry entries, I did that before. But I vote first for using the system account as the symptoms ("works - after a reboot no longer") point in that direction.

please run schtasks /query from command prompt and post the result for us to see.
You can then also run this from a command prompt to create the scheduled task
SCHTASKS /create /tn "Name of your Task" /tr "c:\Windows\shutdown.exe -f -r -t 60" /sc daily /sd 11/29/2014 /st 17:00
That will create a new task to run daily at 5PM (17:00). The system with restart (-r) in 60 seconds (- t 60)

Surprisingly, setting system as the executor did not work. Here are the tests I have run.

PS C:\Windows\system32> sfc /scannowBeginning system scan. This process will take some time.Beginning verification phase of system scan.Verification 100% complete.Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

Some notes: your output file talks about insufficient access permissions - you did not execute it elevated, right? run cmd.exe elevated and un it again.
->sfc and checkdisk would not repair tasks. Task corruption as indicated by "catastrophic failure" can be undone by locating corrupt tasks, deleting their files and registry entries and recreating them.

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ok there seems to be something amiss here--it is not showing the run time--did it run the first time? Try this for me, where the user (/RU) is a domain admin
SCHTASKS /create /tn "Testing Reboot PC" /tr "c:\Windows\shutdown.exe -f -r -t 60" /sc daily /sd 11/29/2014 /st 17:00 /RU runasuser /RP userpassword

Ok, if you ran the schtasks-command elevated, maybe there are tasks only accessible by the system account. Anyway, to find out what tasks are corrupted, you start task scheduler, open the task library and (hopefully) you will receive error messages. Because at that time all tasks are parsed, errors would be found and corrupted tasks would be named - normally.

I just followed a guide on how to remove all taks and registry keys for tasks and recreate them all. I left quite a few useless ones out. I recreated only the Microsoft ones. Now I get no Catastophic or "Selected Task (0)" Errors.

Unfortunately, my reboot task will not even run manually through task scheduler now. I get err.txt

Not sure why you had to set the user to SYSTEM to get it to run properly, I create Scheduled Tasks all the time to reboot servers and I've never had to set it to run as the SYSTEM account. At least it's working now though.

In the properties of the task, do you have the following options selected?

Run whether user is logged on or not

Tick Do not store password. The task will only have access to local computer resources.

I think what's lisited in query are names and folders strictly internal to task scheduler. I only had the one batch file in the root directory and I got rid of it anyway in favor of your command line, and the approach therein.

@McKnife: FYI the culprits, corrupted tasks were two AVG Free Updaters. And it told me which ones were corrupt when I did schtasks /query /fo CSV > tasklist.csv.

@VB_ITS: Maybe something got messed up with it's credentials or memory of passwords. Although I never even set a password prior to this.

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